My dad’s been craving hard candies lately. He probably shouldn’t eat them (is there anything worse for tooth enamel?), but he doesn’t have medical dietary restrictions, so I picked up a whole slew of candies from the open bins at the local grocery. He wanted the old country store types: root beer barrels, lemon drops, fruit candies — just about everything except licorice and peppermint.
I knew a plastic bag was going to be difficult to manage, so I also bought this Snapware canister. It’s lightweight plastic, with a screw-on air-tight seal that I can hardly open — but that doesn’t matter, because there’s a flap on the top of the lid that pops up with minimal effort. No twisting required, and dad can get his (large) hand into the 64 ounce size with no trouble, which he demonstrated right away.
If the small amount of effort needed to lift the tab on the lid is too much, the jar can be closed just by lowering the lid gently, and then opened without dealing with the snap closure. The seal won’t be air-tight in that case, but that wasn’t a consideration for Dad’s well-wrapped candies.
This “square grip” model, like the 32 ounce square canisters, has indentations on two sides, making it easier to hold. I bought it at our local Wegman’s food market (kind of a Whole Foods for the east coast); Cooking.Com carries the 32 ounce and 64 ounce sizes online, along with a much smaller a 10 ounce size.
It’s safe to say that this canister helps meet a certain aesthetic standard in presenting food attractively — but did Dad really need any encouragement to consume what amounts to straight sugar? I think not. Maybe I should have tried filling the jar with sugar snap peas instead.